“I grew up with really narrow definitions of what sex was, who it was for, who it belonged to, and who I belonged to,” Rogers said. “I got married when I was 21, and I found myself inside a world where it wasn’t appropriate to talk about the difficulties going on inside of this space that I had been told was the right place for sex. I found myself alone, sad, and feeling like I had no one I could talk to; my mother had passed away three weeks after I got married. It was a really dark and lonely space for a decade.”

Rogers was ultimately able to talk to someone who encouraged her to get into counseling, and that counselor’s response to her plight changed the way Rogers thought about sex and marked the beginning of her journey toward rewriting the narrative—both for herself and alongside her many future clients.

“Once the counselor heard what was going on in my life and marriage, her jaw hit the floor,” recalled Rogers. “She recommended that I put some boundaries up in my own life and that I stand in my ability to choose. This notion had never been presented to me before—that I have a right to and responsibility for my own self and my own agency.”

After getting divorced, Rogers wondered if there was “a way to be an ethical human who understands her own sexuality.” In search of answers, she went on a deep dive and began to heal. This inner healing was outwardly apparent, and people started asking Rogers what caused the dramatic change. Among those asking were clients at the Motherhood Collective, a nonprofit supporting new mothers that Rogers founded and once led.

Although phrases like “Your past doesn’t define you” and “You are more than what happened to you” bear some truth and offer some measures of solace and empowerment, they can also undermine the lived experiences of trauma survivors. For many of us, rebuilding our lives after traumatic events is a process that is indelibly tied to that event or those events; we can define who we are, but that definition is forever shaped by the trauma we endured. And then, in some remarkable cases, trauma survivors exercise agency by choosing to face their trauma head-on, grapple with it, and ultimately transform it into a tool that can help others navigate similar situations with more support. One such extraordinary case is that of Lauren Elise Rogers, who is a Certified Holistic Sexuality Educator, an Embodied Intimacy and Relationship Coach, and the founder of Sex Ed for You, the business through which she offers her education and coaching services.

With Sex Ed for You, Rogers has carved out a safe and informative space for those struggling with an extensive range of issues related to one of the most widely practiced but also most highly stigmatized aspects of human existence, and she has done so while contending with her own relational and sexual trauma.